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zer0point writes "The law lets U.S. agencies monitor the communications of foreigners outside the U.S. But two senators are questioning whether a loophole allows the storage and search of messages from Americans that are picked up inadvertently while foreigners are being monitored. The intelligence community has repeatedly said it takes steps to minimize the data collected on Americans. Among the senators’ concerns: that the administration hasn’t been able to estimate how many people in the U.S. have had their information reviewed under the program."

People have been willing to ignore these sorts of things since they can at least pretend it's probably doesn't involve their own information. If the truth came out, and the government admitted it was electronically sifting through virtually all internal US communications... I suspect people would start to get riled up over it.

I don't really think it's apathy or lack of intelligence. There are plenty of people that are incredibly intelligent that do not have degrees or high paying salaried jobs. Have you ever operated heavy equipment like an excavator? I know guys that are nearly savants with those things. Not a one of them cares about politics. They chose to apply their wisdom and wits to something tangible, something they can change directly. I can understand that. So much of politics is slight of hand, trickery, lies and deceit that many people just refuse to participate any longer. I can understand that as well.

The left yells you the right is trying to take away your rights. The right tells you the left is trying to take away your rights. They both tell you the other side is wrecking tgr economy. Unless you are paying VERY close attention, it's hard to sort out fact from paranoid fantasy.

They shout at each other across the aisle during the day and then go to the same bars and laugh together at night. It's all a big fucking act, and the evidence is broadly available. Look at who is paying their salaries if you still don't believe...

"They shout at each other across the aisle during the day" -> Of course they do. The Democrats are trying to broker a compromise with the Republicans whereby they can get access to the 'Candy Desk,' and the Republicans want nothing to do with it, because Senator What's-His-Face ends up eating all the cherry licorice.

There are. There were five candidates in the last presidential election on enough ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning. The trouble is, even though they are all viable, the media refuses to acknowledge the Greens, Libertarians, and Constitutionalists. Which they do because the media are corporate-owned, and it's cheaper to bribe two candidates than it is to bribe five.

They're both kinda correct, and the reason is that they're focused on different sorts of rights.

The American right is trying to take away the ability to get an abortion, to organize a union, to communicate and travel freely without being spied on by the US government, to use recreational drugs, and to protest in any meaningful way.

The American left is trying to take away the ability of just anybody to own deadly weapons, to make contracts or sales that they consider harmful to the overall economy (particula

The left is trying to take away some rights, the right is trying to take away different rights, both are trying to take away some of the same rights, but as to the economy, that one's simple: Bush was the only President to leave office with fewer Americans employed than when he took office. He went into office in a booming economy and left the economy in the worst shape it's been in since the Great Depression. Of course, Clinton is partly responsible for the housing/banking collapse (along with the Republic

Completely, it's a feeling of helplessness, not apathy. It's "I would vote if it woud do any good, but both candidates have already been paid off by the anti-pot lobby and the corporations, so whichever one I pick I'm screwed anyway."

It is the natural order of things for people in charge to want MORE power, not less. They are not about to give-up the ability to record Americans conversations. In fact the current government is stone-walling Congress not just on this issue (how many messages were caught "accidentally"), but also the gun-running program into Mexico.

Congressman: "I have an email here that says you were aware of the program. It's addressed to you."Holder: "That refers to the previous Wide Receiver program under Bush."Congressman: "Uh no, the email says right here, and I quote, 'Fast&Furious'. That would be under President Obama's and your watch."Holder: "The email is wrong. It was Bush.":-o

Before 9/11, the government already had a law in place allowing them to place wiretaps FIRST and then request a warrant up two two weeks after the fact. Post 9/11, after the Bush administration got caught systematically placing and maintaining wiretaps without a warrant, they asked for legal approval for US security agencies to use their own discretion on placing wiretaps without need of a warrant, ever. They argued the current law, requiring the eventual issue of a warrant after the fact, to be unworkable because of the sheer volume of communications they wanted to monitor.

At that point, a lot of people who don't normally buy into conspiracy theories came to the conclusion the government intended to data-mine all telecommunications traffic in some manner. Now, we have an NSA facility being constructed in Utah - slated for completion next year, I believe - that has the openly stated purpose of doing just this.

So, yeah - I think it's safe to assume the government is monitoring me, you, and every other US citizen.

Actually, since the law the senators enacted (with the house and president's signature) requires us to minimize intercepts of communications of US persons, it's very hard to determine how much we've collected, since if we knew, we wouldn't collect. That's not a very satisfying answer, and I'm of course posting AC, but the truth is generally very boring.

I read a great article [wired.com] on something much bigger than what they currently do, and it's all perfectly legal according to the article. The NSA super compute center being built currently, scheduled to be on line 2013 has links already in place by agreements with the only provider for major telecom hubs in the US which is AT&T. According to the article the NSA will be snooping, storing, and even trying to crack the encryption for all internet traffic both foreign and domestic, and all without a warrant.

Domestic monitoring *requires* a warrant so a judge must be shown probable cause or any evidence collected would not be allowed in court. So, in the case you are bringing up, if they monitor a domestic to domestic phone call without a warrant they cannot use any evidence collected to prosecute. Given this, they would be *stupid* to not get the warrants, because they'd walk Scott free otherwise.

Wyden's been hinting for a while that their secret interpretation of this "spy on foreigners" stuff is to spy on all Americans as well. They're probably claiming that, since internet or phone can be routed internationally since it's all data packets, that means all communication is international and they can spy on it. Shocking, I know.

When I clicked on the article I was wholly unsurprised to find Ron Wyden was one of the senators. Every time there's something in the news about a bit of sanity coming from a senator, it seems to have Ron Wyden's name. It's encouraging that there's a senator like that out there, but it's discouraging that it's only 1% of them. I wish we could get one or two of those for my state.

Or somebody who actually gives a shit whether the species survives or not. I realize that maybe to you children and people younger than you are utterly useless and should be killed so that you can have the latest IPad, but in the real world, that's called exterminating the species.

Don't forget Bernie Sanders. I first learned of him back in the 90's when I would watch C-SPAN. Every single vote they ever held I would see the I-Yea, or I-Nea exactly as I would have voted. I later learned that the "I" was Bernie Sanders.

I think whats almost as discouraging is that whenever something like this appears in the news its always two and every so often three senators who are raising concerns about this stuff. Its never a large bunch =/

Every time there's something in the news about a bit of sanity coming from a senator, it seems to have Ron Wyden's name.

I guess it depends on your definition of sanity.
Ron Wyden is very good at scoring points by making the right kinds of noises. He depends on the Portland/Eugene vote to keep him elected, and very little on the rural parts of Oregon which are much more conservative.

He still has to deal with the "Smith killed a kid" ad that came out after he claimed he'd run a clean campaign, at least as far as I'm concerned. It is interesting that Republican PACs are assumed to be in the pocket of the candidates they suppo

So do you suggest that we apply the same rules of evidence used in our courts to inelegance gathering overseas? So shall we just go to the international courts to get warrants? I don't think that's a workable solution.

You may not have noticed, but they were elected to represent the interests of Americans. Why would they be particularly worried about whether foreigners are having their rights violated? Those foreigners are represented by governments that are supposed to be concerned about that sort of thing.

Because the beloved US Consitution applies to man, not solely to US citizens.

Indeed, that is why it starts with this sentence that clearly indicates its universal applicability:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

But two senators are questioning whether a loophole allows the storage and search of messages from Americans that are picked up inadvertently while foreigners are being monitored. The intelligence community has repeatedly said it takes steps to minimize the data collected on Americans.

What does that 2nd sentence even mean and why was it included? Either they are allowed, which case no need to minimize the data on Americans or they are not allowed to. "Taking steps to minimize" means nothing quantifiable (up to 100% reduced!).
Even assuming I trust everyone here, that is still a totally meaningless and irrelevant statement included in the article.

The simple solution to this problem is to throw out anybody who doesn't state unequivocally that they will stop the collection of data on US citizens.

Senator 1: "We will take steps to minimise the collection of US communications."Voters: "Get out."Senator 2: "We will drastically reduce the scope of the project to exclude the communications of US citizens as much as possible.Voters: "Get out."Senator 3: "We will stop collecting data on communications made to and from US citizens."Voters: "How will you do th

I wish we would stop this as well, but it is not as easy as you suggest. If we made it that blanket filter against recording or collecting data from US citizens, then it would be trivial to get around any US spying. All you have to do is make sure to copy a dead US citizen's personal email and you are covered. Heck, I have an old Hotmail email that I had long stopped monitoring until I realized that Hotmail let me automatically forward my emails to gmail.

What this article leaves out and the reader should know, is that it is illegal for the federal government to monitor domestic communications without a warrant. There is no such protection afforded non-citizens outside of the USA. At issue is when the CIA (or other foreign intelligence gathering organization of the Federal Government) is monitoring a foreign national outside of the USA who may be talking to someone inside the states. The "loophole" they are talking about basically is that as long as the collection target is not a domestic US citizen, any information gathered is legal to keep, even if it involves a domestic party. It must also be understood that such evidence would NOT be admissible in court for a criminal trial having not been obtained though a warrant. I wonder if it could legally be used as probable cause to obtain the warrant though.

I personally don't see the huge issue with this, unless we are seeing a rash of prosecutions based on such evidence. I have heard of no such cases. Further, unless the Fed is really not trying to filter the data at all, it is unlikely that they have much data that they have to purge. After all, this IS an investigative effort that targets non-US-citizens so it makes sense their filtering is pretty good, or this effort would be useless.

I'll guess that the guys with the tinfoil hats who are looking for the black helicopters won't like this, but I'd be much more worried about Google or Facebook collection efforts than this.

I personally don't see the huge issue with this, unless we are seeing a rash of prosecutions based on such evidence.

"We have sought repeatedly to gain an understanding of how many Americans have had their phone calls or emails collected and reviewed under this statute, but we have not been able to obtain even a rough estimate of this number," Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado wrote...
The senators said in the report that the Director of National Intelligence had told them it was not feasible to come up with such a number.

If nothing else, I worry that even the few senators who may be interested in protecting American rights are blatantly snubbed by the CIA when trying to do so. That doesn't concern you?

Congress holds the money and can choose to not fund the CIA anytime it decides to. Just remember that the CIA is a part of the *executive* branch, subject to the funding appropriation process, the Laws passed by congress and upheld by the courts. There are checks and balances here and the CIA amounts to but a small player on this stage. So I encourage the senators to do what they can to make the point if they don't get what they want from the CIA.

Here's a funny story about that:So there was this project conceived by convicted felon Adm John Poindexter called Total Information Awareness which basically amounted to spying on the Internet, including the activities of all Americans, on a mass scale. This generated a fair amount of outrage, particularly among left-wing civil libertarians, and in 2003-4 then Senator Russ Feingold and Senator Wyden were able to organize a defunding of the program... which basically got renamed and continued on as before w

I do. It allows the potential for abuse, and I see it as an unnecessary power to have. Especially when it allows them to spy on citizens. No, I'm not going to blindly trust the government or their filters that are supposedly "pretty good."

I'll guess that the guys with the tinfoil hats

You needn't have a tinfoil hat to see that humans tend to abuse their power when given too much of it. History is filled with such things, and I certainly don't want to take any unnecessary risks.

California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the committee, said she believes that existing provisions in the law are adequate to prevent Americansâ(TM) communications from being mishandled.... But Sen. Feinstein said she agrees that the committee should know just how many Americans are having their communications monitored.

I am sure Senator Feinstein will see things differently if she was spied upon. And, even more interestingly, "Americans' communication... being mishandled" really depends on her definition "mishandled". Maybe she believes that not spell-checking the permanent records is "mishandling", but spying itself is fine?
As always, it is great to see that the only meaningful debate (which may or may not result in any changes) is whether the senators should be kept in the loop. Nothing about protecting Americans f

The ones that play ball are the ones with the most known about them. If you have a bought stooge, you want to make sure they stay bought. Never run the risk of having loose lips sinking your ships. Always have a sword of damoclese hanging over their heads to keep them in line with your goals.

Anyone who can't see how the military industrial complex and its intelligence arms are controlling US politics along side other corporate interests needs to have their brains examined. Follow the money. T

The point here, though, is that the stooge only thinks they can get away.

No, the point here is that she is not trying to get away. She has played her role faithfully all along and I expect her to do so until death. That doesn't mean they don't spy on her, but it means they don't have to do it so much. Just watch out for exceptions and flag on them, no big deal.

I don't think you are understanding the character of this issue. Yes, foreign spies operating in the US need to be worried, and yes we should and do take steps to deal with such activities. I expect other countries to do the same for spies located in their borders... But at issue here is intelligence gathered from domestic sources about foreign communications. Basically the law gives the CIA the right to monitor communications that cross our borders, despite the fact that at least one side of the conversa

"Nothing to see here Senator Likes-to-be-spanked-by-nuns-while-wearing-diapers and Senator Visits-livegoatporn.com-every-fifteen-minutes. No personally-identifying information is being collected and certainly wouldn't get out unless completely by accident."

I've often wondered who Anthony Weiner [wikipedia.org] ticked off, too. I should point out that the picture that caused the entire scandal was not something that actually showed his face, so it's quite possible what actually happened was that somebody hacked his phone, put an image of some guy's weiner and sent it to a believable and pretty young woman (who might also have been on payroll), who then went to the news media.

I hate to do it, but someone has to.How many people have been killed by international terrorists on US soil in all of history?How much have we spend on counter-terrorism efforts in the past 10 years?Do some math... and we're spending billions per civilian life to stop terrorist attacks.Lets just stop for a while and see what happens.

Now you're going to jump up and yell "That's cold! It's horrible! How could you?!?!"Well, yea... fine, I'll accept that. But what if we instead spent all those billions on cancer research?Not only would we save far more lives, over a much longer term, but dieing from cancer is plain and simple a worse way to die that having your plane blown up or crashed.Counter terrorism is an excuse to maintain our cold-war levels of military readiness that simply are not needed any longer. We need to stop, and think before we spend and bomb.

I believe the likelihood of such an attack is also very much worth considering, and that rights are far more important than a few people's lives. In other words, I think this "to stop the terrorists" nonsense has to go unless they show that it's working, show that it doesn't violate anyone's rights, and show that a specific attack is likely going to occur.

You know, I really really hate straw man arguments. Especially when you are brainwashed in to thinking that's the only answer.

Did you know, that we have chemical detection units that could be installed in airports that detect chemicals in the air without intrusion. We also have numerous types of animals trained to do the same. Did you know that using either of those two methods would have caught the underwear bomber before they boarded a plane. No current methods including the naked scanner will pick up

While perhaps a bit funny, your statements lack any credibility. We are spending billions on scanners, and more on people that grope everyone boarding a plane. The US Military has had air detection for a long long time. Expense relates to adoption, so costs for the air sensors would quickly be reduced if adopted. They are not more expensive to build, and operation requires much less training and head count. In other words, you have been duped in to thinking that financially the only option is a massive

Consider a much more clear and present danger than terrorism: drunk driving. It kills 11,000 people (including 3000 people who aren't the drunk driver) and costs approximately $115 billion worth of damage every year. That's roughly 1 9/11's worth of non-drunk-driving victims, 1.5 Hurricane Katrinas, and another 8000 drunks on top of that, every single year. But because it's something that happens at a rate of few dozen a day, we don't notice it as much (unless, of course, it's you or somebody you love who g

If any information is collected by real time surveillance of any sort without a judicial ruling pertaining to a particular person for particular stuff, AND NO ADVERSARY WAS AVAILABLE TO OBJECT, then it can never be used in evidence for any domestic civil, criminal, administrative case or any other legal proceeding with consequences to the subject at all. Zero tolerance. Cite precedent that the government itself uses zero tolerance in many legal actions.

It may be difficult for you to accept this, but many Americans are against a lot of what our government does in the name of our safety and interests. I know that foreign stereotypes of Americans are well-ingrained and constantly reinforced by the foreign media, but you could exercise your critical thinking organ a bit here.

"that the administration hasnâ(TM)t been able to estimate how many people in the U.S. have had their information reviewed under the program."
So unless I'm mistaken I pretty sure communications going through other countries don't have some kind of "this is a us comms" tag. Ya, you MIGHT be able to use an IP but with the nature of the Internet and routing it's pretty easy to get that mucked up. So that said, how do you count the number of communications collected on US persons if your not sure where th